An aside to what is happening in Gaza is events occurring in the West Bank, where there has been little focus. Reports in recent days have drawn attention to attempts by settlers – read the Israeli government – to “Judaise” Area C and to push Bedouins out of the West Bank.
Some 98 families, numbering 552 people including 173 children are reported to have left their homes following settler violence, supported by Israel’s soldiers and police. Such a result fits with Israel’s longstanding policy to make life so miserable for Palestinian communities that they eventually leave – it is a land-grab strategy plump and plain. This unlawful policy constitutes forcible transfer in an occupied territory contrary to international law.
These reports come following the publication on 18 October of an “Emergency Legal Briefing Paper” by the Center for Constitutional Rights. The centre is a U.S. legal organisation operating since 1966 and said to fight for justice and liberation through litigation and advocacy. The subtitle to its Paper is: “Israel’s Unfolding Crime of Genocide of the Palestinian People & U.S. Failure to Prevent and Complicity in Genocide”.
A brief summary of the Paper is needed. The actions of the Israeli government are detailed, including such statements as the fact that Israeli actions since 7 October “are for the purpose of destroying the Palestinian population in Gaza”. Attention is drawn to the fact that the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide make it clear that genocide cannot be justified in the name of self-defence.
The Paper finds that the U.S. is bound to take all available measures to secure a ceasefire, to ensure the provision of all necessary humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in Gaza, to end all military and other support for Israel until Israel complies with international law – including ending the crime against humanity of apartheid. I quote further:
In addition, the international community must achieve the immediate end of Israel’s 16-year closure of the Gaza Strip, Israel’s 56-year military occupation of the occupied Palestinian territory (the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza), and the apartheid regime Israel administers across historic Palestine.
By way of completeness, I record that the Paper finds that there is a case that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza, and that because of its aid and assistance to Israel, the U.S. is complicit in such genocide.
How will our government respond to the Paper? I am not holding my breath. The Prime Minister is more concerned with attending in the U.S. to advance the AUKUS contract.
Paul Heywood-Smith is an Adelaide SC of some 20 years. He was the initial chairperson of the Australian Friends of Palestine Association, an incorporated association registered in South Australia in 2004. He is the author of The Case for Palestine, The Perspective of an Australian Observer published by Wakefield Press in 2014.